A. Oracle Corporation, a leading business software maker, initiated a $0.05 quarterly dividend in May 2009. Oracle’s annual $0.20 dividend amounts to about $1 billion, a relatively small amount compared with operating cash flow of $8 billion and another $9 billion in cash and cash equivalent assets on its balance sheet at the end of fiscal year 2009. An analyst who follows Oracle for institutional investors saw the Oracle announcement as a signal that the company is well positioned to ride out the downturn and also gain market share.
B. In mid 2009, Paris based Groupe Eurotunnel announced its first ever dividend after it completed a debt restructuring and received insurance proceeds resulting from a fire that had closed the Channel Tunnel. In a 2 June 2009 press release, Eurotunnel’s CEO said that this “marked a turning point for the company as its business has returned to the realm of normality,” as the company anticipated a return to profitability.